Phew! New featurette for The Giver puts black and white back in the picture

Philip Noyce's The Giver, which arrives in theaters this August, might well be mistaken for another Hunger Games or Harry Potter-style YA replication. Actually, however, the adaptation of Lois Lowry's popular and critically-acclaimed young adult novel is something that actor Jeff Bridges has been working on for nearly two decades, way before the Katniss Everdeen's of this YA craze were introduced to our big-screens...

Expect big things.

After watching The Giver's first trailer a few weeks back, I was a little cautious about what to expect from the adaptation. But this new featurette in black and white gives me total confidence that Jeff Bridges knows exactly what he's doing with the tone of the movie. Take a look and see what you think:

Wow, that red apple was a beautiful touch. I am totally on board.

An adaptation of Lowry's popular and critically-acclaimed young adult novel, The Giver takes place in a dystopian future where all humans conform to a government-enforced phenomenon called 'Sameness.' In this world society runs like a machine, where citizens are genetically engineered and drugged to suppress emotions or 'Stirrings.' With no sadness, suffering, or choice, citizens live in blissful ignorance of the full human experience. This changes for Jonas (Brenton Thwaites ) when he is selected as the 'Receiver of Memory,' the sole keeper of all historical knowledge of life before the Sameness.

We'll have to wait until next August to see how Jeff Bridges', Taylor Swift's and Katie Holmes' parts in the movie turn out, but if you've never read Lowry's heartbreaking science fiction novel, do yourself a solid and read The Giver now. You are NEVER too old!